That is exactly my point, and I will be developing it during my speech. The lack of certainty leads to difficulties for a large number of people in our society. Whether caused by zero-hours contracts, part-time employment, general low pay, undercutting, a lack of payment or the minimum wage, bogus self-employment or, indeed, a combination of those factors, it all leads to a situation where the reality of the economic recovery is no recovery at all. I mentioned earlier that on average people are £1,600 a year worse off, and although apparently we have an economic recovery, that is not what is happening for the majority of people and their families in everyday life.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) mentioned the care sector, which is important in the context of the amendments. Before she died earlier this year, my mum was looked after by some wonderful women. Two of them came at weekends to look after her, and they visited four times a day. They told me that their working weekend was, on average, 25 hours long, yet they were paid for only 10 hours. Far from getting the minimum wage, they were being paid less than half that for their work, because they did not get money for their travel time and were paid only for the 15-minute slot when they were with the vulnerable elderly or disabled person they were caring for. In addition, a draconian system was about to be introduced in which they had to phone on arrival and when they left, to ensure that their employer knew they had carried out the visit. Whose phone they were supposed to use was a matter of conjecture, and whether they were supposed to ask the householder or vulnerable person, or use their own mobile—presumably at their own cost—was not made clear. The reality was a low-paid existence for people doing one of the most important jobs that anybody can do, which is look after the most vulnerable people in our society.
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This issue was debated not just in the Bill Committee, but also in the Committee on last year’s Care Bill, on which I also sat. We hear sympathy and warm words, but nothing is changing in this country with the way that workers in the care sector are treated, and they are providing a very cheap form of care for the people who most need it. We have to do better than that, not just for the workers themselves, but for those who rely on them. The amendments are important to start to tackle some of the scourges and problems caused by low pay and payment that is below the national minimum wage.
The point was made earlier that such measures are important because they lead to far greater commitment. Why would someone carry on working in a sector when they are taking home just over £3 an hour? People will
inevitably start to look for somewhere else to work where they can earn more money, and we will not keep the best staff and quality of care unless we pay for it properly. As has been said, some Labour councils are doing a good job and have signed up to the ethical care charter promoted by Unison. They are paying not just the minimum wage in the care sector, but a living wage.
I recently spoke to a director of adult social care who told me that her council has decided to invest half a million pounds in care from a limited and decreasing budget, and in spite of the significant cuts imposed on it—as has happened in many councils, including my own—by the Government. The council realises that unless it takes the drastic step of investing a big sum of money from its budget, quality of care will continue to decline. It has worked out that such investment will lead to an improvement not just in quality of care, but ultimately in efficiency and the financial return that comes from that. People will stay in their jobs, become better at them, and deliver a better standard of care, and that will save money as well as delivering a better service. That has to be the way forward for the care sector, but the situation has not been helped by a lot of what has happened since the Government came to power. Big cuts to social services have made the situation increasingly difficult, and lots of councils would love to go down that route but have not been able to for financial reasons.
We have heard from those on the Front Benches about Labour’s plans to give responsibility and power to local councils to enforce the national minimum wage, but cuts to HMRC have made it significantly more difficult to enforce existing legislation—I have also seen that in my area where HMRC employs a significant number of staff. The Government’s efforts to introduce a policy of naming and shaming have been pretty poor.